Of My Friend
by starhealer
Summary: Contains spoilers to Gensosuikoden so...if you haven't played, please don't read. A simple POV piece during a troubled time.


Disclaimer: As if you haven't read enough of these already. Well...in that case, you already know the spiel so I won't waste your time repeating old nonsense. ^-^x  
  
  
I wrote this piece oh...about five, six months ago, I think. Which therefore makes it fairly old. I wasn't even going to post it originally, but I'm in quite a funk and needed something sad to do. And having read over this again, I actually think its post worthy. I don't care if people like it really, or if anyone even reads this. Usually I do, but...this one was written for me. So in the end, it's still for me, yes? Sorry if I sound selfish...  
  
Anyhow, if you do read this and like it, well, I'm glad. Please, everyone, enjoy yourselves. I'm going to do my best to be happy as well.  
  
  
  
...Of My Friend  
  
  
  
  
The cold slamming of the steel door clamoured in my head. What...what was this? The door...should not be closing so soon. Why was there cold steel pressed against my back?  
  
In front of me, the others were yelling, pressing forward. I was crushed between them-warmth on the front, cold on the back. Gremio wasn't behind me like he should have been...why was there cold on my back?  
  
Viktor was saying something. I think I heard him...I think I heard his voice, but I don't know. Cold steel...Where was Gremio? "My God! Gremio! Come on out!" Gremio...Gremio, you were still inside? But you should have followed behind... Shocked, I watched blankly as Viktor pounded on the door and screamed across it. His hands were red and sore..."What are you doing? Hurry!"  
  
Panic lanced through my chest as the realisation of what Gremio's being on the far side of that door meant. The spores...Oh God, the spores. Why was Gremio back there? He was supposed to be with me. He was supposed to...supposed to protect me!   
  
"Viktor. This door can only be opened and closed from this side."  
  
Gremio's voice was coming from the other side. Why was he on the other side? He shouldn't be on the other side. Everyone else... Viktor, Cleo, Pahn...they all looked so sad. But they weren't doing anything. Move, move now! Open the door! I turned around, groping with my hands at the metal, my fingers trying to jam their way through the seams-where were the seams? Doors always had seams...I should be able to pry them apart at the seams! Why wouldn't they help me?  
  
I vaguely sensed Viktor continuing his pounding. He was trying to help me, yes! I pried at the door harder, searching for the seams that weren't there, searching for a way to save my best friend-a way that didn't exist. "What are you talking about?" More slamming, more jarring as I scrabbled my hands across the cold sheets of metal. My fingers were beginning to bleed. "We'll get by somehow. So hurry up and come..." I think Viktor started crying.  
  
"No, it's too late. The spores are at my feet now, so if I open the door..."  
  
Oh God, no. No, Gremio, don't you dare leave me! I pounded the door with my fists, hoping to break it open if I couldn't rip it apart. He couldn't leave me! He couldn't do that to me! He couldn't...He wouldn't hurt me like that. Maybe, maybe if I ordered him..."Open the door, Gremio!"  
  
"Young Master, for once I refuse to do as you ask."  
  
Suddenly, the world stood still. Trembling, I could feel my knees sink to the ground as his words pierced my heart. In the silence that followed, the reality of my situation overtook my senses. I couldn't feel anything other than the severe aching in my chest. The hot tears that slipped down my face barely registered. The silence ripped the world from me and took with it everything I ever knew. My entire life was inside Gremio and he...he...  
  
"Young Master, can you hear me?"  
  
No...no, please don't do this. Gremio...God, no...The tears that flowed down my cheeks became a torrent and full-blown sobs wracked my frame. I pressed my forehead to the doors, hoping perhaps that they would part for me now, that they could sense the pain that I felt and they would open for me. Compassion lives not in the deathly cold of steel.  
  
"I'm sorry I can't protect you anymore..." I'm surprised his voice reached me...Everything else, everyone-Viktor, Cleo, Pahn, Flik-I'd long since lost touch with them. Even Cleo's pain-darkened face didn't register as I listened to the failing wheeze of the single most important person of my life. I didn't want to hear him...I didn't want to hear him! "But now that you've grown up, you no longer need my protection."  
  
My body slid farther to the ground as I sobbed like a child. Why couldn't he understand? I didn't want his protection! I didn't care about any duty or sense of loyalty he had, I didn't want him with me to use as a shield. He...he was my best friend. I'd already lost Ted...why did Gremio have to do this? Why can't you understand...why can't you understand that all I want is you? But no matter how I tried, the words wouldn't form and I couldn't yell them back to him.  
  
So he continued: "Young Master...you make me proud. I wish Master Teo could see you now."  
  
Somehow, I'd turned myself so that I faced those that stood with me. The door pressed to my back, cold and dead and keeping me from the only father I cared to see me now. My father...my father was dying and he didn't even know it. "Gremio..." Gremio...my father Gremio...  
  
The voice that reached me now was so soft, so wracked with pain and conviction. My father was talking to me even as he died a terrible, gruesome death. My father cared so much for me that, until his end, his words were for me. Always for me...always...  
  
"Young Master." I'm your son. "I think it's time to say goodbye." I can't...I can't... "I can't see anymore." I squeezed my eyes shut and snaked my arms about me, trying to hold him in, trying to hold him. "Young Master. I'm proud of you." I don't want you to be proud of me, I just want you to be with me. "Promise me you'll always follow your heart. That is my first, and final...request..."  
  
  
  
  
I don't know what happened afterward. There were voices, faces. Mathiu was there, as were members of the Liberation Army. Someone helped me to stand and shouldered me through the cursed door that would not open. That would not...open...I struggled from the man's grasp and collapsed to my knees beside the switch that had kept that terrible, cold door closed, that had sealed away a part of my life forever. I knelt beside that lever and clung to the weather-worn, lived-in cloak that Gremio had always worn and I wept one last time. Then, as the last of my tears spilled from my cracked and battered fingers into the lifeless fabric, I stood and walked from the resting place...  
  
...of my friend. 


End file.
